On
Friday morning, February 26, 2010, Chuck Holton reported on CBN’s 700 Club program of a man who believes
he found an “amazing Biblical discovery” on Malta.This nine-minute video segment featured Robert Cornuke presenting
his theory about the location of the Apostle Paul’s shipwreck on the island of
Malta.

Cornuke,
in his persona as a “former Los Angeles crime scene investigator,” approached
the account of the shipwreck of Paul in Acts 27 and 28 as a “crime scene.”As he read the Biblical text, he
concluded there were four “clues” that needed to be found in order to solve the
“crime.”He identified these as:
(1) a bay with a beach; (2) a reef or sandbar where “two seas meet”; (3) a seafloor
with a depth of 90 feet; and (4) a place the sailors would not have recognized.Cornuke concludes that the shipwreck
occurred on the eastern shore of Malta, not on the northern side of the island
as most scholars believe.

Conuke’s
theory and investigations, as presented in this news segment, were already set
forth in his 2003 book entitled, The Lost Shipwreck of Paul (Bend, OR: Global Publishing Service).In the book his view is that the
Alexandrian grain ship containing the Apostle Paul and Dr. Luke was shipwrecked
on the Munxar Reef on the island’s eastern end.Cornuke claims to have located, from among the local spear
fishermen and divers, six anchor stocks which could have been from this
shipwreck (cf. Acts 27:29, 40), four of which were located on the east side of
the Munxar Reef in fifteen fathoms, or ninety feet of water (cf. Acts
27:28).He identifies the “place
where two seas meet” (cf. Acts 27:41) as the Munxar Reef and the “bay with the
beach” as St. Thomas Bay (cf. Acts 27:39).He concluded that neither the sea captain nor his crew would
have recognized the eastern shoreline of the Maltese coast when it became light
on the morning after they dropped anchor (cf. Acts 27:39).Unfortunately Cornuke’s theory simply does
not hold water.

Experts and
Computer Models

Cornuke consulted Graham
Hutt, an expert on Mediterranean storms, and Hutt concluded that the ship would
have been driven by the winds to the southeast quadrant of the island, and that
the more likely place of the shipwreck was the Bay of St. Thomas.

In the book, Cornuke
described a visit to the Rescue Coordination Center of the Armed Forces of
Malta (2003:184-193).Here he
watched a computer model that plotted the possible course of a ship caught in a
windstorm from Crete to Malta.The
ship landed, after 14 days in a severe windstorm, in the St. Thomas Bay!

The limitations of storm
experts and computer models were well illustrated by the recent Nor’easter that
hit the Northeast United States on Feb. 25-26, 2010.The storm was a prime example of what computer models and
meteorologists could not predict.The meteorologists on television said that this “monster storm” defied
all the computer models and did not behave as any of the meteorologists
predicted it should!

Bay with a
beach

The beach in the St.
Thomas Bay was identified as the “bay with the beach.”The earliest maps of Malta show that
the Munxar Reef, at one time, was actually a series of small islands.Possibly in the first century AD, this
location would have been a lengthy peninsula that has now eroded away.If that is the case, the sea captain,
in all probability, would not have been able to see the low-lying beach of St.
Thomas Bay from the area where the four anchor stocks were found and almost
certainly, he would not have dared to sail his ship through the dangerous islands
or peninsula to reach the beach!Thus,
the Bay of St. Thomas could not be the beach that the captain saw or where the
sailors and passengers swam to.

Reef or
Sandbar where the “two seas meet”

Several
times in the news segment the Munxar Reef is described as a “sandbar.”A careful examination of a geological
map would have identified the reef as being made of “Middle Globigerina
Limestone.”This soft limestone is
rock not a sandbar.

The identification of the “two
seas meet” is based on two Greek words, “topos dithalasson”, that are
translated different ways in different translations.Professor Mario Buhagiar, of the University of Malta,
cautions that this term “does not offer any real help because it can have
several meanings and the way it is used in Acts 27:41, does not facilitate an
interpretation.A place where two
seas meet (Authorized and Revised versions) and a cross sea (Knox
Version) are the normally accepted translations but any beach off a
headland (Liddell and Scott) or an isthmus whose extremity is covered by
the waves (Grimms and Thayer), as indeed most water channels, can
qualify as the place where the boat grounded.The truth is that the Acts do not give us sufficient
clues to help in the identification of the site” (see link at bottom for full
bibliography).

Anchors at
90 feet

Mr.
Cornuke interviewed people, primarily divers and spear fishermen, who claimed
to have located four anchors on the south side of the Munxar Reef at 15
fathoms, or 90 feet of water.Two
other anchors were allegedly found near the Munxar Reef in 10 meters (ca. 33
feet) of water.Cornuke implied in
his book that these two anchors were the ones put in the skiff when the sailors
tried to escape (Acts 27:30).These
interviews are the author’s primary evidence for Paul’s shipwreck.

Unfortunately only two
actual anchor stocks can be examined.They are on display on the second floor of the Malta
Maritime Museum in Vittoriosa.The other four, however, are
not available for scholarly consideration.One of the anchor stocks was melted down, another is in a
private collection, and two were allegedly sold on the antiquities market.

Unfortunately
the video clip of the anchors in the Malta Maritime Museum is very misleading.It shows 6 or 7 anchors on display, but
only two are from the Munxar Reef.One of them, called “Tony’s anchor,” was one of the
smallest of those on display.It
measured about 3 feet, 8 inches in length and would be too small for the stern
of an Alexandrian grain ship.

On the other hand, Professor
Mario Buhagiar examined the other anchor and gave a cautious analysis, “It could have belonged to a cargo ship, possibly a grain cargo ship, and possibly one from Alexandria” (2003:
183).He went on to conjecture,
“This anchor stock would fit very well within the era of St. Paul” (2003: 184).Although this anchor could have been
from an Alexandrian grain ship, suggesting that it was from Paul’s shipwreck certainly
goes beyond the available evidence.

Did not recognize
the land

In
the 1st century AD, the island of Malta was, in essence, the “Turn
Right to Sicily” sign in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.Malta was the landmark for sailors sailing
west from Crete who were about to turn north to Sicily.The eastern end of the island was what
they saw first and it was a welcomed and recognizable sight.

It seems that capable sea
captains, piloting an Alexandrian grain ship between Egypt and Rome, would have
recognized the landmarks on the eastern coastline of Malta, including the St.
Thomas Bay and the hazardous Munxar Reef which every sea captain would know
about because of its inherent maritime danger.

Dr. Luke, however,
testifies the sailors did not recognize the land.This suggests that the shipwreck occurred at a different place
on the island.

Can We Know
for Sure?

At
the end of the 700 Club news segment,
Holton stated that it was “impossible to know for sure if this is where the
shipwreck occurred.”I would strongly
disagree with that statement because my work leads to the inevitable conclusion
that the St. Thomas Bay theory is contrary to the Biblical and geographic
evidence, the alleged anchors are not verifiable, and thus it is surely possible
to know that Paul’s shipwreck did not occur on the Munxar Reef.One must look elsewhere for this
shipwreck.

For a detailed and
documented critique of the St. Thomas Bay theory as presented in Cornuke’s
book, see:

For
another devastating critique by a Maltese diver based on his local knowledge of
the waters around Malta, see pages 162-174 of the just released PAVLVS, The Shipwreck 60 A.D. by Mark
Gatt (2010, Valletta, Malta: Allied Publications).

A Documentary Coming

On Tuesday, February 16,
2010, it was announced on Maltese television that Mr. Cornuke’s documentary about
the location for the shipwreck of the Apostle Paul would be released by the
BASE Institute in April, 2010.

If Cornuke has any new
evidence that supports his theory and that responds to the significant problems
that have been previously noted, his discussion is welcomed.If it is merely another way to
sensationalize an old theory that has already been refuted then this documentary
will not be about an “amazing Biblical discovery.”